Sentimental Cockney Generation. Oh the hilarity ^_^

July 31, 2006

The other half and I were enjoying a session of piano duettage yesterday courtesy of Josh from Josh’s anime sheet music, when it occurred to us that his version of Sentimental Generation (The opening to School Rumble Nigakki) reminded us a lot of traditional Cockney piano music, as re-popularised by comedian Bill Bailey.

For those of you unlucky enough not to be familiar with Cockney music, let me explain.

Cockney refers to the accent from people who live in or in the vicinity of London. Strictly, it referred to people within earshot of the Bow Bells (On St. Mary of Bow church, Cheapside), but now the accent is far more widespread and it is basically “London accent”. Now, in addition to Cockney music, London has also gifted the world with Cockney rhyming slang, possibly the most complex and illogical set of colloquialisms in the entire universe.

Cockney piano music is basically characterised by a tempo of about 120-150 bpm and a basic rhythm where quaver chords alternate between hands and words are sung over the top. Inbetween song parts there are various trills and flourishes, such as the “Cockney intro” and “Full pearly king” as named by Bill Bailey. For those of you truly unfortunate enough not to know of the genius cockney comedian Bill Bailey, and those of you that arealready familiar with him, a good basing in Cockney music may be found in this clip from “Bewilderness”, and this extra track from the same tour “Cockney medley”

The basic rhythm of the left hand of “Sentimental Generation” is classic Cockney rhythm with the left hand playing the sung part on top and it is absolutely hilarious. Especially the part:

o/’ Kizutsukiyasui sedai dakedo/ Sen-ti-men-cha-ru! COCKNEY Generation! (Do do do do do do…Hey!) o/’ (followed by full cockney intro).

Good job Josh ^_^. Not sure if you meant it to be that way or not, but I approve of the result!